


What Christmas Means To Me

by VampAmber



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Baking, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel in the Bunker, Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Tree, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Eggnog, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff, Holiday Mixtape 2017, Human Castiel, M/M, Murphy's Law, Pointless, SPN Holiday Mixtape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 00:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12995766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampAmber/pseuds/VampAmber
Summary: Castiel chose to fall and become human again in order to be with Dean. Now that the holidays are here, he wants to celebrate it like other humans would. While Dean is out, the ex-angel tries to decorate the bunker and make Christmas treats as a surprise. Too bad he's not very good at being human just yet.Pointless Christmas fluff because.





	What Christmas Means To Me

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote fluff. Never would've guessed, right? This was for the [Holiday Mixtape challenge](http://holidaymixtape.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr, and I barely finished it in time. I blame moving from Georgia to Ohio last week. Can that be my excuse please?
> 
> ~~~
> 
> Very loosely inspired by the song "What Christmas Means To Me" by Hanson. 

[ ](https://imgur.com/apxq3V1)

Castiel stared at the list in his hand, deep in concentration. He had wanted to make sure everything was done, and done correctly, and he knew that the best way to do that was with a list. He might have went a bit overboard on how many things he had on it, but he wanted everything to be perfect this year. After all, it was their first proper Christmas together.

The angel had chosen to fall and give up his grace to become human again over a year ago, in order to be with Dean and live a more ‘normal’ life. But that first year they’d been too busy cleaning up all the remaining loose threads that needed to be taken care of before the three could quit the active hunting life and go into a more managerial role to celebrate the holidays. Somebody had to take up where Garth had left off with Bobby’s work, after all, and who better than the master of research himself, Sam Winchester? All the books the Men of Letters had stored in their bunker helped in that area, too.

It had been a little over two years ago when Dean had finally admitted his feelings for the angel. It had taken a life or death situation to make him man up and say those three little words, but Castiel had never been happier. When the decision to lead a less deadly life with each other had been made, Castiel had been the one who’d brought up becoming human again. Dean had objected at first, of course, not wanting Cas to give up immortality and all his powers just for them to be together, but Castiel had insisted. He wanted this, more than anything. He wanted to wake up next to Dean every morning after having slept next to each other. He wanted to share coffee and meals and actually taste them. He wanted to be able to feel everything Dean could, and in order for that to happen, he needed to be human like Dean.

Castiel had wanted to experience everything human that he could now, and at the moment that was Christmas. While Sam was currently heading towards Nebraska to lend a book to one of the hunters that was still on active duty, so to speak, Dean was at the mechanic job he’d started to keep himself from being too bored. Castiel still had a few hours before Dean came back from work, and he wanted to get as much done as he could beforehand to surprise him. And that’s where the list came in.

The now human angel had been doing research for the past month, trying to figure out everything that was needed. He’d also been doing secret trips to the store to get all the necessary items. The most difficult part, though, Sam had helped with. They’d waited til after Dean left for work to head to the nearest Christmas tree lot to pick out the pine tree that was now standing majestically in the area of the bunker they’d turned into a living room. They had taken Castiel’s truck, and Sam had helped him set it up when they’d gotten it inside. The younger Winchester had also made sure that Castiel not only had everything he needed to turn the bunker into a Christmas wonderland, but that he knew how to put all of it together. After many repeated reassurances that he’d be fine, Sam had finally left to deliver the book.

The first item on the list was to trim the tree. Unlike most of the other items, finding a specific way of decorating the pine tree that was an obligatory part of the holiday festivities had been impossible to do. It had turned out that there was no one correct way to decorate it, and after having looked at hundreds of different tree styles on a website he’d found called Pinterest, he’d given up and just bought the ornaments that had looked appealing to him. They were now spread around him, mixed among different colored garlands and strings of lights and unopened boxes of a shiny thing called tinsel.

The strategic part of his brain had no ideas, so he just grabbed the garland and started wrapping it around the branches. All the different tree designs may not have been able to agree on much, but he at least could tell that the garland and the lights were to be wrapped around the tree. It was actually a lot harder than it sounded, though, especially with needles falling off constantly. It didn’t help matters any that the branches broke easily, a fact Castiel found out multiple times as he tried to get the different colored garlands into place.

When he stepped back to see if he’d done the first part correctly, he frowned. He’d apparently broke two of the larger branches as he’d struggled with the garland. Then he smiled as he tried to emulate his lover’s way of thinking by turning the tree around to the other side to hide the two broken branches. Castiel nodded triumphantly when he saw his idea had worked. Now to be more careful with the lights.

That plan didn’t work out very well either, because there were three more obviously broken branches by the time the lights were strung around the fresh tree. No matter what angle the ex-angel turned the tree, at least one broken branch was now clearly visible. He let out his held breath in a huff and just hoped that, after the rest of the decorations were on, they would be less noticeable.

He was swearing out loud in Enochian by the time he had all the non-broken ornaments placed on the tree. They looked very haphazard in their placement, and there were the shards of eight of the glass balls currently sitting in the trash can, but at least they were the only casualties in the war the tree had waged, and almost won. “Never again,” Castiel grumbled to the empty room, talking about glass ornaments in general. “Plastic only next time.”

Last but not least for the tree came the tinsel. Castiel wasn’t sure how to go about applying it, but it had looked quite attractive in its little box at the store, and other people in the aisle had been putting multiple boxes in their carts so he’d grabbed a few himself. He pulled out a clump of tinsel and placed it on one of the branches. Castiel was pretty sure that was how it was done. He repeated the process for the other four boxes, then eyed the clumps. They were very shiny, but something about it just didn’t look right.

He knew that the brothers hadn’t had much in the way of a traditional upbringing, which meant they’d often missed out on celebrating Christmas. Now that they weren’t actively hunting, Castiel also wanted to make up for some of John Winchester’s parenting shortcomings. Because that was one of his biggest goals with all the decorating, everything had to be perfect. The tree… did not look perfect. He wasn’t sure how to fix it, though. He would just have to come back to it later, after he’d finished the rest of the list, then.

Castiel sighed as he moved on to the kitchen. The tree could wait, but the cookies would need to be baked quickly if they were to be cooled down enough to decorate. He’d found recipes for both sugar cookies and gingerbread men, and was planning on trying to copy some of the designs he’d seen on Pinterest. The cookies had to be made first, though.

The now-human angel got out all the listed ingredients and lined them up on the counter. He checked them to make sure they were all there, and nodded in satisfaction. He may not have gotten the tree perfect, but something as simple as baking cookies would be hard to screw up. He got out the mixing bowls and other hardware, then pre-heated the oven like the recipe said he needed to. He had yet to master cooking, or even get very good at it for that matter, but he knew that even children made cookies so it couldn’t be that difficult.

Once again, he was wrong in judging the difficulty of his task. Measuring the ingredients was a nightmare, leaving behind a mess Castiel dreaded having to clean up. He’d even gotten flour all over himself and the Metallica band shirt he’d borrowed from Dean’s drawer to decorate in, which saddened him because he loved smelling his lover in the cloth as he worked. He sighed and started cutting the men shaped cookies, figuring that he could just grab a quick shower and a different shirt after he finished and the cookies were in the oven.

By the time Castiel got out of his shower, the smell of baking cookies had filled the bunker. But by the time he was dressed, the smell had turned to that of burning cookies. He rushed to the kitchen and pulled the oven door open. A wave of smoke poured out, and he barely managed to get the trays out of the oven, he was coughing so hard. The cookies themselves were all but ruined. The edges of the lopsided sugar cookie circles and the raggedy gingerbread men were almost black, and Castiel had to stop himself from crying. First the tree, and now this?

The all too human Castiel scraped off the worst of the burnt parts into the trash can, then decorated the cookies as best he could. He was even less artistic than he was a natural cook, though, so they all ended up looking like the ones he’d seen pictures of children doing. He sighed and put them onto a plate anyway. He would just have to do the rest of the decorations perfect to make up for the tree and the cookies.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought to get anything to hang up the lights and the stockings and the wreaths. After scrounging around for a few minutes, he finally found what Dean jokingly referred to as his fix-all stash of duct tape. He knew that the gray tape was pretty tough, and figured it could probably hold up the decorations, if he used enough of it. The lights didn’t look too bad when he was done, and the wreaths could have looked worse.

The stockings, though, gave the ex-angel pause. All the websites had said that they should be hung over the fireplace with care, but the bunker had nothing even close to a chimney. The best solution Castiel could come up with was the stove, since it was the only thing that had any kind of fire whatsoever. So he used plenty of duct tape, since they would eventually be full of stocking stuffers, and taped them on the wall by the oven. He grimaced at how off they looked, but it was, once again, the best he could do with what he had to work with.

Castiel knew that Dean would be coming home soon, so he skipped plugging the lights in for now to make the eggnog. He watched the stove like a hawk as the liquid was brought to a boil, since he knew that unlike the cookies burnt eggnog could not be salvaged. When it came time to add the alcohol, though, Castiel faltered. It called for barely any, and there was no way that could be right. While Dean and Sam weren’t exactly alcoholics, he knew that they had a much higher tolerance for it than most people. Most hunters did, in fact. So with a shrug, the ex-angel added triple the amount, plus a little bit more. That seemed much more like it. He put the concoction in the fridge to cool down, then started to clean up his multiple kitchen messes. He jumped slightly as he heard the bunker’s door slam shut a few minutes later. He knew Sam wouldn’t be back for a couple more hours at least, so the only other option was Dean.

“Hey Cas, they let me off a bit early today cuz it was so dead,” Dean called out as Castiel rushed to meet him.

“Dean, welcome home,” Castiel said as he skidded to a stop in front of his boyfriend.

Dean glanced around with a grin. “Seems like someone’s been a bit busy,” the ex-hunter remarked. “You do all this yourself, Cas?”

Castiel blushed and nodded. “I wanted to surprise you,” he said softly.

Dean chuckled. “Well, it worked.”

“Let me show you the living room,” Cas said excitedly as he started to pull on Dean’s hand. He wanted to hide, though, when Dean got his first glimpse of the tree and started to laugh.

“It’s perfect, Cas,” Dean said in between chuckles.

“Even though I messed up the branches?”

“It looks like all the trees I saw other families have growing up,” Dean commented, going in for a closer look. “Though I think you’re supposed to spread this stuff out more,” he added as he touched one of the tinsel clumps.

Castiel blushed. “I wasn’t sure how to do it,” he admitted.

“Well, you did great then, angel,” Dean said before coming over to give his embarrassed boyfriend a kiss.

Castiel blushed even more, but was at least coherent enough to kiss back. When they pulled apart, Dean sniffed the air. “Did you bake, too?”

“The cookies turned out like the tree,” Castiel said sadly. Dean may have enjoyed the dilapidated looking tree, but nobody could enjoy burnt cookies.

“Wow, a tree and cookies,” Dean said in awe. “You really outdid yourself, Cas.”

“You may want to save your judgement until you’ve tasted them.”

Dean made a face when he bit into the first one, but he still finished off one of each. “Considering you can still barely cook, these turned out fairly edible,” Dean remarked, leaning over to grab a second somewhat-burnt sugar cookie.

Castiel blushed again and said “Thank you” as he busied himself with more clean up. Dean could make him blush where no one else could.

“Nice touch on putting the stockings near the stove, since we don’t have a mantel,” Dean commented as he broke off the darkened parts of one of the gingerbread men that had a shoddily drawn plaid flannel shirt on it.

“It made the most sense,” Castiel answered, putting the last of the dishes in the new dishwasher Sam and Dean had installed two months ago.

“You do anything else?” Dean asked as he opened up the fridge. He gasped and pulled out the container of eggnog. “Holy crap, I love this stuff,” he said happily. Dean grabbed two glasses and poured until they were both full. “You are way too good to me, babe.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Castiel lied.

They toasted, and both took a sip. Dean’s eyes snapped open wide in surprise and Castiel’s watered at how strong the eggnog was. “Don’t even have a ring on your finger yet, and you’re already thinking like a Winchester,” Dean said, then took another gulp of what was basically eggnog flavored whiskey.

“You would… we could…” Castiel stammered out, his eyes wanting to water for a new reason.

It took a moment for Dean to realize what his boyfriend was on about, but then he smiled so wide that it probably hurt. “Of course, Cas,” he said as he took Castiel’s hands in his. “I wanna spend the rest of my life with you, because I love you. I can do this proper later, if you want, but one of these days I’d like us to get married like normal people.”

Castiel gasped and threw his arms around Dean. “Yes, I will marry you,” he shouted, even though it hadn’t technically been a proposal. “I love you more than anything, Dean.”

“I love you too, angel,” Dean said before kissing his boyfriend senseless.

They’d had a bit too much eggnog by the time Sam got back a few hours later, and were drunkenly attempting to figure out which bulb was the messed up one making the lights not function. The younger Winchester was annoyed at their drunken antics until Castiel boasted about having the smartest fiance ever when Dean finally got the lights to work. Then he was too busy hugging them to care.


End file.
